Quentin Tarantino established his reputation as a writer of sharply-written dialogue and carefully crafted scenes at the beginning of his career with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, two of the most quotable films in movie history. His career since has been slightly more hit and miss, but on balance his movies have always had that element of Tarantino's trademark snappy dialogue which makes his films distinctly his own. The opening scene of Inglorious Basterds is not only a highlight of Tarantino's writing ability, it is also a fantastic work of direction which builds up tension with a disquieting subtlety. SS Colonel Hans "The Jew Hunter" Landa arrives at a small French dairy farm in search of the Dreyfus family and proceeds to interrogate the paterfamilias responsible for hiding them. His unusual interrogation technique - and his oddly soothing, pleasant demeanour - is what truly makes the scene work, proving that words alone can create an atmosphere of tension and looming dread far more effectively than overt threats of violence. Christoph Waltz's outstanding performance projects the scene into the realms of one of the greatest in all of Tarantino's filmography. Inglorious Basterds never quite manages to attain the same level of perfection - while it does have its moments, the film becomes a patchwork affair playing on a variety of genre conventions and in places borders on the cartoonish, and the disjointed narrative prevents it from recapturing the engrossing levels of the opening scene. Which, considering just how great that scene is, isn't necessarily too harsh a criticism.
